Waiting on Love

Candles and Communion

Today, we light the last of the little candles

In the season of Advent, we light these as reminders

Not only what the world waited for before Christ was born...

Also, what we wait for now - before Christ comes again

Light candles:

We wait through the power of hope

We wait in the Peace of Christ

We wait with the joy of the Savior

And today, we wait on love

Waiting on love to do what? To have it’s perfect way

What’s interesting is John has an interesting explanation of God and love

1 John 4:8–10 ESV

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

It only makes sense then, that we would reflect today on God’s perfect love

Not that we have loved Him, but that He loved us

And showed it by sending His own Son to die

Jesus taught us to remember that very sacrifice in Communion

We’re going to take communion together, but first we need to get the elements

Come down the center aisle, take the elements, return to your seat

Beginning in the front row

Also, we have a table at the back

The back row will head there first

As we collect the elements, we will sing our praises to God

After singing, we will come back together

Take Communion

Introduction

There are 2 kinds of love out there

A lot of you know about the different Greek words for love

Eros - Erotic or passionate love

Phileo - Brotherly love

Storge - Familial love

Agape - Unconditional love

But I’m breaking those down more broadly

Each type of love is going to work one of two ways:

The love of the object is based on the value of the object

The love of the object establishes the value of the object

Show hi-hats

These are 14” Zildjian A-Custom Mastersound hi-hats

Just under $500 new, and I love them!

I love how they sound, how they feel, how they look

They are valuable, so I love them

However, if I dropped them and formed a crack - my love for them would change

The smallest chip or crack would diminish their value, and I’d be in the market for a new set of hats

Assuming I could talk Tash into getting some K Sweet hats for around $600

The point is, I love these because they’re valuable

Show Slob Tongue Video

That is Slob Tongue - clever name for 2nd grader

Matchbox made these things called Razzcals in the 90’s

Apparently you squeezed them and the tongue would inflate and it made a farting noise

My mom got it for me for Easter on clearance at Toys R Us - it didn’t work

Its the most worthless toy ever - but I loved Slob Tongue

Did anyone in here have something special to them when they were little?

Teddy bear, doll, blanket...

Ronnie has a pillow pet that looks like it travelled with the Donner party

But he keeps sleeping with it!

If you have something like that, think about it

Do you love it because it’s valuable?

Or is it valuable because you love it?

Slob Tongue has virtually no value

But when he disappeared I was devastated

Turns out, my brother got mad and dumped him in the trash

Through my mom’s awesome interrogation skills he admitted it - and Slob Tongue was saved

Show Slob Tongue

Here he is, in all his glory

Tash has tried to get me to toss him numerous times

But she knows, this isn’t something you throw away

Because it is love by me

It has value because I love it

YouVersion: Waiting on Love

We’re in 1 John 4:7-12

This is an unusual Christmas passage

This week I was Googling Christmas love passages

I considered John 3:16, but I always do that

Turns out, everyone else does too

I was ready to say, “Okay, this is all we have,” then I came across this passage

It’s still the same author as John 3:16, but it’s from an epistle and not a gospel

Let’s hop in

1 John 4:7 (ESV)

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Remember, advent (from adventus) means “coming”

The point of this series is to make the connection between Christ’s first coming and His second

The time He was here, and the time he will come again

Both of those situations required “waiting”

What John is saying here, starts with love at the root

The Greek is much more beautiful here:

Simply: “agapetoi agapomen”

Literally, those who are loved, let us love

“agapetoi agapomen”

If God loves us, we should love each other

When you know God, love is a part of your life in a way that was impossible before

At Christmastime, I look around and I am so full

I just love what God did for us

The colors and lights just seem to point that direction all the time

If you know God, you know love!

So then there’s a flip side to that too:

1 John 4:8 (ESV)

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

If you don’t know God, you can’t know love

Not the pure, holy, perfected agape love that God offers

You may have erotic love or brotherly love...

But if you want perfect love, you have to know God

You might think, “I don’t know love, I don’t experience God’s love and I know Him!”

No, you don’t - Scripture is clear

You may know about God, you may believe He exists, but you don’t know Him

You can’t possibly know Him because John says, “God IS love!”

He doesn’t just have it or show it, He IS it!

We have to be careful, because God is love, but that doesn’t mean that love is God

God is not only love and love doesn’t completely describe God

Scripture says that God is spirit, light, and consuming fire

We don’t look at fire and say, “Oh look! There’s God!”

When we describe God, His love is so rich and powerful and full, that everything He does is an expression of that love

C.S. Lewis: “Though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not.”

In love, God does not force Himself on anybody

In love, Jesus went about doing good to everyone without partiality

In love, Jesus lived a humble life without complaint

In love, Jesus is even kind to sinners

That’s why John said this:

1 John 4:9 ESV

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

Do you ever question God’s love?

Sometimes I don’t question whether God loves, just whether He loves me

Maybe you look around and think, “If God loved me, this wouldn’t happen” or, “If He loved me, He would have done that.”

Max Lucado: “God loves us too much to indulge our every whim.”

I’ll put it to you this way, if you ever doubt God’s love remember this:

We know God loves us because Jesus came

Love is the only possible explanation for Jesus coming to the earth

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas story is the angels appearing to the shepherds

Luke 2:15–20 ESV

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Shepherds were some of the dirtiest people in ancient Israel

Only a notch above a leper

If you touched one, you had to ceremonially wash

They were with animals all day, even slept with them to protect them

And yet, the angels appeared to the shepherds!

To announce the king of - not just the Jews - the world!

Messiah! Christ the Savior is born!

And they run down there, and where is He at?

In a marble crib with golden fleece diapers?

No, he’s in a manger… a feeding trough for animals

Your first thought is like, “What?! Who would do that?”

I’ll tell you who would, a shepherd...

What a thought, the creator of the universe sleeping in the most humble of places

The same place I did and my children did...

If Jesus would choose that how could you think He doesn’t love you

If that’s still not enough, look at this:

1 John 4:10 ESV

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

It’s amazing that God would humbly walk amongst us

It’s even more amazing He would be the propitiation for our sins

Propitiation means atonement

What’s even crazier is this:

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God came, and died for us, when we didn’t deserve it!

Do you know what that means?

You are Slob Tongue!

I should have made that a fill in the blank...

We are valuable because God loves us

As worthless as you are on your own...

You are priceless when God loves you

God has gone to great lengths to prove His love

It doesn’t matter that you’ve been stitched up, patched up, missing eyes, duct-taped your ears back on, whatever!

God loves you anyway and there’s no damaged part that could change that

Remember that blanket or stuffed animal or whatever you had...

No amount of drool marks or missing eyes could change that love

That’s how God loves you, but in perfect way

A love that could only be loved by an all-powerful, all-loving, all-holy God

So what do we do?

1 John 4:11–12 (ESV)

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Because we’re flawed, we do forget God’s love

We focus on our shortcomings and think they’re too much

But John is saying this:

God’s love is perfected in us

Today’s message is called “Waiting on Love”

And some of us are

Maybe someday I’ll experience God’s love

Maybe someday that love will change me

Maybe someday, God will actually love me

You might be waiting on God’s love, but you don’t have to

God’s love is here! It’s been here!

And it’s been beautifully obvious for 2,000 years!

Sammy Tippit: “There's no place too dark for God's light to penetrate and no heart too difficult to be set aflame by His love.”

A week from today, we’ll be celebrating Christmas day

That means you have one more week to love

When people are struggling or miserable, they need to feel God’s love

You know where God’s love is made complete? In us...

That is accomplished when we love like God

This is what Jesus taught us to do

John 13:14 (ESV)

14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

I picture Jesus standing after He washed His disciples feet

I’d be thinking, “Ok, must be my turn to wash His feet.”

Instead, He says, “If I wash yours, go wash others.”

We always press people to remember the “reason for the season” at Christmastime

And that’s great! But how do we do that?

By loving people...

If you want to give a great gift this year, give what people need

They need God’s love! They need hope and peace and joy!

Share that this week, and then carry it on into the rest of your waiting process

...until Christ comes again...